Plainsong

Praise

"A novel so foursquare, so delicate and lovely . . . it has the power to exalt the reader." —The New York Times Book Review

"Resonant and meaningful . . . . A song of praise in honor of the lives it chronicles [and] a story about people’s ability to adapt and redeem themselves, to heal the wounds of isolation by moving, gropingly and imperfectly, toward community." –Richard Tillinghast, The Washington Post Book World

"A compelling and compassionate novel. . . . [With] his sheer assurance as a storyteller, [Mr. Haruf] has conjured up an entire community, and ineluctably immersed the reader in its dramas." –Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"A work as flawlessly unified as a short story by Poe or Chekhov." –Jon Hassler, Chicago Tribune

"Haunting, virtuosic, inimitable." –Sarah Saffian, San Francisco Chronicle

"If the novelist invents a world, then Mr. Haruf has shaped a place of enormous goodness… The story itself–spare, unsentimental, rooted in action–honors the values of the community it describes." –Lisa Michaels,

"A moving look at our capacity for both pointless cruelty and simple decency, our ability to walk out of the wreckage of one family and build a stronger one where that one used to stand." –Jeff Giles, Newsweek

"A work as flawlessly unified as a short story by Poe or Chekhov." –Jon Hassler, Chicago Tribune